


Hypnos Tartarus

by Alex_Rogers_Stark



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Tony Stark, Boys In Love, Civil War Fix-It, Civil War Team Iron Man, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Fix-It, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Happy Ending, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony-centric, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:29:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Rogers_Stark/pseuds/Alex_Rogers_Stark
Summary: After Cap and his merry band of misfits left Tony in the wake of their destruction, he’s been struggling to put all the different pieces of all the different puzzles back together. He’s making amends. Putting his life back together. Tony’s begged Pepper for her forgiveness and pleaded with her to take him back; he’s watching over a superhero-ing kid and taking on the responsibility of safety and role-model-ship; he- he’s trying, okay?But when Tony gets a call from Thor, he’s asked to fall back into action. Something’s haunting the halls of Asgard, putting warriors into unwakeable slumbers. It isn’t just him they decide to call, though. Turns out the Capsicle himself is summoned from his hidey hole to come out and play.When this mysterious being manages to trap the two of them in Tony’s mind, things go from bad to worse. He’s not only stuck with his newest of arch nemeses, but apparently, in order to get out, Tony has to relive his worst memories. Correction, they have to relive his worst memories. The ones Tony’s never revealed to anyone else. Ones he had no intention of letting past the demon that lurks within the bowels of his neurons, guarding who he really is from ever seeing the light of day.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 78





	Hypnos Tartarus

**Author's Note:**

> See end of chapter for Notes

There’s a heaviness in Tony’s arms and legs, a dull tingling he can feel running through his limbs as it reaches for his addled and fogged mind. It’s something, he thinks, in the distant kind of thought that waves as it passes you by, that should cause him some form of panic.

In the darkened recesses of his brain where someone has oh so inconveniently switched off the lights, Tony musters enough clarity to connect this feeling to the ones usually following exhaustion induced black-outs caused by five-day lab bingers – his longest being eight days. A feat never reached again after those Ritalin, Adderall, and caffeine induced years of college study at MIT. These black-outs (unfortunately, if you ask him) always tended to last for about fourteen hours in spite of the six-hour average a normal adult gets in the United States.

Tony halfway expects a bright-eyed and grinning Rhodey to firmly grip his shoulder and give it a shake while the man’s forsaken alarm clock starts blaring that terrible army tune he always insisted was the only thing that could wake him up. Always ringing at the most inhumane hours.

“Preparation for shipping out,” he’d tell Tony on a constant basis sounding more than a little apathetic to Tony’s hungover and tired-as-all-fucking-hell plight.

Rhodey always managed to somehow sound fond, though, when he said these things. Tony’s pretty sure Rhodey only embarked on his annoyance escapades because he knew how much it bugged Tony.

However, Tony’s mature enough now to admit there may have been a little bit of ‘life-lesson-teaching’ in there about drinking and aggressive partying that took the form of Rhodey-shaped karma – something that was apparently Rhodey’s way of protecting a young, naïve sheep from much older wolves. Tony never understood the why of this, but he has never been one to look a foundation of friendship in the mouth.

Anyway, Tony’s fairly positive all that was long ago. Left in simpler, happier days where it was still just the two of them against the world.

A sudden wave of homesickness and nostalgia poke at him, and Tony instantly shoos them away. He can’t do much about that now. Starks aren’t ones to dwell on the past, he remembers his father telling him. Ironic at least, hypocritical at best. The past holds no interest for Stark men, no matter how glum and grey the present and future currently look.

 _I call bullshit, Dad_ , Tony thinks.

He supposes Howard never saw the future or present for glum or grey. His father always did manage keep himself relevant.

Tony’s limbs are frustratingly difficult to control despite the creeping encompassment of consciousness as he steadily begins taking more shallow breaths, his heart rate increasing in its staccato rhythm. If Tony’s honest with himself, all he really wants to do right now – despite the heaviness he knows is pressing underneath his eyes, reminding him that over-sleeping will only serve to give him yet another migraine and increase his fatigue (and therefore his already constant irritability) for the day – is let the allure of sleep pull him back beneath crashing waves and onto the lofty sand-beds of unconsciousness. Sleeping may be a useless waste of time, but it’s an indulgence he rarely gets to enjoy.

A yawn bubbles up his dry throat and past his lips. Tony can taste the staleness settled in his mouth, and he scrunches his nose trying to swish some saliva over his tongue. God, how he hates waking up.

Lifting his head, unsure of what he plans to do yet – rolling over to sleep some more sounds just about as good as getting up to make the trek for the tap water from the bathroom sink and swallowing an aspirin (or five) to beat the throbbing starting at his temples – it finally clicks, like the right gear latching into place at last, that something is well and truly off.

 _Not right_ , his mind warns as something tugs at the skin and facial hair on the side of his face and chin.

Tony feels air pop between his teeth and his cheek and heavy eyelids blink open to bright, blurry surroundings. It has Tony closing his eyes again. He registers the same tugging on his clothes as he moves his arms to press on either side of him and push himself up. Sitting is an excursion he finds surprisingly difficult, but he gets far enough to partially rest back against his calves.

Tony raises his hands to rub at his eyes in hopes of bringing more awareness to himself as the last remnants of sleep seep from his pores. When his hand meets his face, though, Tony pauses, brow furrowing at the cool sliminess being wiped from his palm.

Once again, Tony tries to squint his eyes open, face pinching even more at the attempt. _Not gonna happen_ , he thinks, mind sluggish. He lets his eyelids fall closed. Everything feels extraordinarily heavy and his mind is moving as if it were submerged at absolute zero. It’s frozen where alarm bells should be blaring, only a dull, buzzing massage in its place.

Shifting his hands behind him and letting them take the brunt of his weight, Tony tilts his head to the sky. As expected, the slight change in angle warms his face in a pleasant way. _Stay here for too long, and it’ll start to burn,_ the thought flits across his mind.

He stays. For now, it’s a nice feeling.

After some time, Tony slumps forward with a sigh. He struggles to get his legs out from underneath him, but, eventually, he’s rewarded with managing to splay them out in front of him. Tony preens, stretching his neck up to pull at the aching muscles in his arching back, flexing his feet to feel the tug up through his calves and to his hamstrings. When was the last time he’d been this relaxed?

He tries not to recall. Tony finds he’s not eager to let this pleasant thrum go just yet.

Another yawn bubbles its way to his lips, and Tony leans forward, dropping his chin on his chest in another stretch. Daring to venture back into the light, he blinks his eyes open and tries to focus them. The bleary edges start to recede, his gaze becoming sharper.

It takes a second for the image to sway into focus and an even longer one for it to fully register. A grey and blue haze finds structure, and Tony squints, eyes fixating on the arc reactor. It shimmers bright and blue underneath the thin, black spandex fabric of the Iron Man undersuit.

Closing and opening his eyes lethargically, Tony looks on dumbly. He doesn’t think that should be there. Not anymore.

Like a silvery blue bullet, the thought shoots through the fog, dispersing into willowed wisps in the time it might take him to fly above the Pacific fog.

Jerking back, the last gear locks into place. Tony clamps a hand around the protruding cylinder, an ever-widening gaze staring at the arc reactor. His fingers convulse for a moment, clenching and unclenching around the material as he stares. Thoughts held down moments ago swirl in his brain like a binary star system, moving too fast to get one in a steady grip until _Not right!_ flings from the throws with familiar clarity and far more urgency.

No. He remembers. Tony remembers.

The smell of carbolic acid and antiseptic begins breaching his nostrils. Tony can _hear_ the doctor’s popping on their latex gloves, the scalpels and lancets and drill bits and all the other surgical tools rattling in that metallic tray. He can feel the sharp noises bounce around his skull like a pinball. There’s still the taste of the Propofol exuding from its home of a triangular mask lingering in a thick layer over his tongue. And he knows, _he knows_ , he never really did, but it’s like he can _feel_ their hands digging into his chest. Just like Yinsen’s hands. Like a dark cave where only a car battery would do. An abomination he turned into his saving grace then rejected once again.

Taking a gasping, shuddering breath, Tony yanks himself as far from those thoughts as he can. Before the dust coats everything and rattling is replaced by yelling in a language he can’t understand and he’s taken over by a spelunkers’ darkness before the burning, bright heat of dunes and sand.

It’s harder, on some days, for him to pull himself away from the memories of years ago. He used to think it’d get easier. It never did, not really. They still burn bright into his eyes, choking his lungs, like it was mere hours ago.

With a gagging intake of breath, Tony snaps his eyes open. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

A tautness grows through the length of his body, like ramrod straight sticks being shoved under his skin and through his muscles to corral his spine. Tony’s breaths come out in short bursts that he thought he’d ironed out after his first little exploration into space. He lets out a bitter laugh. Or, at least, he thinks he does. _Of course_ his coping mechanisms are failing.

His vision finds its way back to the… thing in his chest, and Tony takes the unconstrained seizing of his muscles as a personal offense. Taking a jagged breath, heaving it past the blockage in his throat, he firmly reaches his other hand towards his chest. His fingers dig in, clawing at the suit frantically. Tony watches the plunge of his nails as they desperately dig into the fabric to get the clothes off.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , he’ll find nothing underneath. Find it to be a trick of the light. Because what else could it be if not a trick of the fucking light?

The question sends a spike of terror through him.

As if they have a mind of their own, Tony’s fingers plunge through the material like an erratic sewing needle on a broken machine, and as soon as he has his grip, he takes it, tearing the spandex as hard as he can. It splits the suit right down the middle. The shoulder seems to cling to him while the rest of the fabric hangs loosely around his gaunt and haggard frame. Waxy, pale skin shines between the ripped edges of fabric making him look like he’s been the victim in some episode of _Law & Order _.

In the middle of his chest, scarred with an array of reddened, raised skin and harsh, deep lines, is the arc reactor. Its chromed casing glints. Can’t really deny that, now.

Something escapes his throat: a caustic huff of air as he fights back a whimper. Well, he’s not actually sure what to do now.

Gingerly, Tony reaches a quivering hand to circle around the metallic casing that carves out about an inch and a half through his sternum. He runs the pads of his fingertips slowly, carefully over the metal again and again, like a hypnotist. Now, all he’s doing is waiting for the right word to cast him from his spell and make everything return to normal. No human barking like a dog to see here.

God, he’d always hated hypnotists. Exchanging fucked up mind games for money. A trick of the light. A trick of the scepter. _Not all hypnotists are frauds_ , he reminds himself.

The shining metal begins to dim, and Tony pulls himself from his stupor. Black streaks trail after his fingers as they loop the arc reactor. When Tony pulls his hand away, he watches the black stretch like gum between his fingers and the reactor.

Looking down with keen gaze, Tony scans the immediate area. It’s all black.

Everything grounds to a halt, and an eerie calm washes over him. _Bad meet worse_ , he thinks.

Tony narrows his eyes, and he lifts his head to twist around and take in the expanse of land that surrounds him. The tar goes on for miles. As far as his eye can see, at least, meeting the horizons in a harsh line where solid black meets the bright, blinding red-orange of the sky.

For a moment, he’s taken back to the sunsets that used to paint the Malibu house. How the sleek, smoothed surfaces, curved of titanium and glass, reflected the burning yellows, reds, and oranges like a mirage upon every surface as the sun sank beneath the ocean. The image is inescapable and utterly seared into his brain.

A bitter pang tries to break through the blank slate filtering the thoughts in his mind. Tony pushes the feeling away. Right now, he needs to think and as reminiscent of a sunset this may seem, there’s a slight problem with his theory: there is no sun.

Craning his neck back, Tony searches the skies. Nothing. It’s like the entire thing is some domed ceiling with screens emitting one harmonious image like one of those God awful flat Earth models or _The Truman Show_. The only thing lacking is Jim Carrey and his merry band of misfit facial expressions and vocal tones.

His face begins to tingle as he stares up into the empty expanse of sky. The lack of clouds is worrisome, and the lack of wind even more so. Tony has no idea what layers lie in the atmosphere above him, but if there is no weather... He can’t be sure if some sort of troposphere is going to mitigate the climate or if a stratosphere is preventing UV rays from frying him. Hell, for all he knows, the exosphere is the only layer around him and this place is going to lose oxygen faster than his body can take it in if the planet is already tidally locked around a red dwarf.

Letting out a breath, Tony shakes his head and closes his eyes. He takes a few deep swallows of what he hopes is breathable air to regulate his heartbeat and keep him from hyperventilating.

When he opens his eyes again, Tony looks back to his fingers. Pursing his lips, he begins to rub them slowly together, stretching and warming the rubber-like substance. Whatever it is, it’s not corrosive or poisonous; Tony doubts he would be awake at all if that were the case. It does smell very similar to burning rubber and sulfur, though, and the more he rubs at it, the stiffer and less tacky it becomes.

“Shit,” Tony says in a dazed huff. He’s somehow managed to find himself in the middle of a massive tarpit.

His skin continues to prickle, and he uses the back of a shaking hand to wipe the beads of sweat now forming on his brow and gathering at the back of his neck. He _knew_ the heat would get uncomfortable soon.

Frantically, Tony works his way to his feet. He growls as his arms shake when they take his weight, and he tries to lock them into submission as he shoves himself up. A wooziness overcomes him as he makes it upright and straightens out. And then he’s pitching forward and falling back to the ground. He tries again. Tony’s not sure how long this heat will last, but it’s probably the only thing keeping the tar melted enough for him to move. He has no desire to become La Brea’s next exhibit.

When he does manage to get his feet under him, his legs continue to wobble, making his first few attempted steps unsteady. Tony stares down at his feet, watching his vision pull apart into two before smashing back together. He realizes he has no idea how long he’s been out.

Tony rubs the back of his wrist into his eyes and blinks them open. As his vision begins to clear, he starts looking for anything in the distance that’s not tar. This place definitely isn’t Earth. What’s a little more worrisome is Tony doesn’t think it’s Asgard either.

In hopes of keeping the dizziness at bay, Tony circles around slowly, eyes caught on the far-off horizons trapping him like a crop circle. There seems to be some indication of trees far off, stabbing through the orange sky like dripping ink blots. It’s an eerie sight. A chill runs through him, but it looks the only way to go. Everything else is… tar and horizon.

Taking a wobbling step forward, something in the near distance glimmers, catching his eye. There’s a figure lying on the ground, similar to his own earlier happenstance. Squinting, Tony takes a few more stumbling steps forward, legs feeling slack, almost numb. He watches as a gradual movement stirs itself from the figure and feels an instant wave of relief flood him.

Alive. There’s someone else here, and they’re alive. He lets out a breath and feels a sag in his limbs.

Stumbling closer, the figure etches itself in detail in Tony’s retina. Melting from its black silhouette, colors begin to increase in intensity. The sudden clash of shadows and highlights draw firm lines.

Tony stops dead in his tracks.

He can _see_ the hinting at red and white stripes on the person’s partially hidden abdomen, and his eyes continue to trail upward until they come to an abrupt halt beneath a broad set of muscular shoulders expanding and contracting beneath solid, navy blue fabric.

 _Jesus_ , the thought dispels through him like a high velocity explosion. He can feel the rage boiling through him within an instant.

If situations can’t go from bad to fucking worse.

It seems the universe plucked Eden’s Apple and handed it to him because he’s officially in hell. The one and only Capsicle, this century’s Benedict Arnold, breathes a steady rise and fall a few feet from Tony’s shoes. Shallow, but steady.

He can feel the increase of rage flooding through him like plasma in a star before a stabbing pain pierces through his brain. As if a knife were being plunged into his right temple.

Tipping sideways, he watches as the world swims in front of his eyes. An earthquake of far larger magnitude than in the last shift. There are shooting pains, like electric shocks zapping up through his bones, alerting him that the ground has met his knees. A ragged cry jerks itself from his throat, and gravity yanks again and suddenly he’s bending over, one hand shooting out to land in the tar with a _thwop!_ while the other grasps at his skull in an aching, desperate manner.

Rancid bile rises in his throat again, and Tony knows he’s going to puke. Coughing, his stomach convulses, squeezing his esophagus, lurching and abetting in the rise of stomach acid. A small dribble escapes his mouth, and Tony lets out a high pitched keen as his stomach continues to cramp up. Nothing else comes up; he can’t remember the last time he’s eaten.

Falling to his forearms, biceps trembling with his gasps, Tony gulps air into his lungs, wide eyes wildly darting left and right over the ground. What _is_ the last thing he can remember? He’s been so focused on where here might be, he hadn’t bothered to get around to _how_ he got wherever here is.

He needs to think.

Reaching back into the recesses of his mind, Tony pulls the bleary images forward. He twitches slightly as the sensations overwhelm him. Like some sort of interactive play through.

* * *

He’d been sitting in his lab, and by the aches in his back, he’d been sitting there tinkering for far too long. With a groan, Tony placed his hands in the curve of his lower back, pressing in and pushing himself forward into an arching stretch. A few pops rattled the bones, and he rolled his shoulders, tilting his head from side to side. Aches or no, he still had suits to work on.

The Iron Man armor was due for an upgrade. Had _been_ due for an upgrade. An upgrade Tony put off, kept putting off, for reasons he refused to think about. It was always the quickening of breath and heartbeat, the shaking of his fingers, the pounding darkness trying to pull him into the dimmed parts of his mind where he knew a demon lurked. Stalking, waiting to pull him back under and remind him.

It always wanted to remind him.

Tony glanced over at his suit standing behind the glass casing like some relic in a museum. Lights shone down on it and he threw his head down with a gulp. A long time ago – ages ago, really – the suit of Captain America had stood under similar lighting on a mannequin stuffed with enough polyester to fill a woolly mammoth. He could recall the childish thought, a thought only a six-year-old could have, that even with all those polyester steroid shots, the dummy still managed not to fill the suit. There was a concave dip here, an odd bump there to prove it. It was a pathetic attempt to emblazon immortality on a man already dead.

Jarvis had held Tony’s hand tight within his own arthritic one that day. Tony could feel the bones beneath that paper-thin skin, could feel the wrinkles and outcroppings of veins. He loved that hand. As a child, it held him, taught him, protected him as much as it could. When Tony got older, it did its best to provide guidance.

Jarvis led an entranced Tony through the displays explaining each memento to the best of his memory. Eyes as wide as an owl, mouth slacked in awe, Tony had fired off question after question to Jarvis. Was that really Captain America’s motorcycle? Did these trinkets belong to the actual Commandos?

And the most entrancing of all, radiating beneath fluorescent lighting of the Smithsonian, was Cap’s shield. The only model on display.

As Jarvis had piloted him away, Tony had looked back one last time, eyes darting between the shield and the mannequin. The shield hadn’t been the only fake thing on display.

Letting out a growl, Tony swept a hand over his eyes. He tilted his head to glare accusingly at the suit one last time before wrenching himself back to the red and blue fabric clenched in his hand. He rubbed at the synthesized Kevlar and spandex between his fingers. Rough to the touch, but sturdy and mobile.

There was a vat in the corner of his lab holding a reworking of a gold-titanium chest plate fit for a slightly smaller chest. If Tony soaked the metal in that acid for long enough to create a networking of pores, he could fill and trap a saline solution within the body of the metal. It was simple after that. All he had to do was introduce an electrical charge into the liquid, which had become iodized, and by strengthening and weakening the atomic bonding within the metal by giving or taking away extra electrons, the strength of the material could more than double when necessary.

It would be armor that could be hidden between two layers of fabric. Practically nonexistent to the outside world. Malleable like normal fabric and then strong enough to stop a bullet within the span of a second should the need arise.

Tony severely hoped the need never would arise, but the twitching nervousness died down whenever he thought about the metal soaking in its acidic solution.

There was something coming. Tony could feel that much deep within the marrow of his bones. He _had_ to make sure Peter, Strange, and anyone else fighting would be prepared.

What frustrated him the most was he had no solid idea what he needed to prepare for. There were too many variables. Too many possibilities, and if he missed just one…

A silence filled the room, and Tony blinked back to himself and the world around him reappeared. FRIDAY’s voice filled the room and Tony found himself inadvertently craning his neck up to watch the ceiling as she spoke. A bad habit he hadn’t gotten around to breaking.

The blaring of a blue light splattering against the walls around him, flickering on and off, clued Tony into the reasoning behind FRIDAY’s interruption.

“It’s been going off for the past hour, boss,” she told him.

Sighing, Tony pushed himself from his knees and onto his feet ignoring the cracks and pops. He set the fabric gently on the table next to him before wiping his sweaty hands over spoilt and stained jeans. Tony rubbed at his bloated eyes, staving off a yawn as he approached the holoscreen.

So he hadn’t gotten around to sleeping much lately. Sue him. Pepper’s nagging was more than enough reminder of that for him. And he’d tried. Really. Behind closed eyelids, well, he only found memories. Nightmares. A strange mix of foreign and chokingly familiar that left Tony reeling whenever his screams woke him up.

He couldn’t remember any of them. The dreams. What Tony did know, however, was that they left him raw and sick when he managed to shake himself awake. Left him with a single face always floating in his retina like a burning afterimage in an old television.

Pepper had suggested therapy. It didn’t take a genius to be able to tell that his reactions to the nightmares scared her. That she wanted to help somehow. But Tony had tried the therapy thing. Many times.

He went to the appointments, and the clockwork began. They’d ask what’s wrong, and he’d give them the abridged version. Then came more questions and the poking of wounds as if talking, prodding, investigating the dark places in his soul were a viable option for his healing. They’d make suggestions on how to cope with things they knew nothing about – at least from firsthand experience – like take a walk in the park at least once a day. Tony snorted. As if not staring at the birds and bees for long enough was the cause of all his ailments. Sometimes, when they really had no idea what to do with him, they’d suggest drugs.

It was all par for the course.

He realized, of course, that there was a certain difficulty in getting help from someone who could never truly understand what it was like to fly a bomb into outer space and slowly drift out of existence. Or witness the future deaths of everyone he’d come to know. Or be betrayed by the one person he thought maybe he could finally trust with who Tony Stark really was. Warts and God fucking all. So he’d instantly waved the idea off with a chuckle and a quirk of his lips.

Tony pretended not to notice the mix of irritation and sadness and resignation lurking in Pepper’s eyes. The way she looked at him like she _knew._

Settling himself into the chair, Tony leaned back, contemplating. He didn’t recognize the number, and it seemed FRIDAY couldn’t pinpoint an exact location if the “Out of Area” message was anything to go by. His number was private and more difficult to obtain than the director of the F.B.I.’s. Tony figured it out within the hour, by way, which was saying something.

A wariness settled in his gut, something new in his older, post-twenties age. An unknown number lived and breathed trouble, and he’d been a very good boy for Pepper. Had promised and fulfilled that promise of staying out of said trouble.

His eyes wandered over to the Iron Man suit, and Tony wished he could say he hesitated even the slightest before clicking the green “Accept” button.

Not a lot of things tended to surprise Tony. After his stint in Afghanistan, he liked to think he became good at predicting how the world worked. Each lesson after that only added lines to his programming so he could better predict and handle the next Big Thing. Seeing Thor’s smiling face taking up the entire holoscreen was not one of those things. Especially some new and improved Thor who looked like he’d decided he wanted to take a role in the next _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movie.

God, Tony hoped they wouldn’t bother making another one. The last film had been pathetic, at _best_ , in its attempts of spinning an old story new.

“Am I dreaming?” Tony asked, aware that that possibility was more than a little plausible. He raised his hands to rub at his eyes.

“Nay!” Thor boomed, and Tony jumped. If that hadn’t woken him up, then Tony was definitely, unfortunately, awake.

There was a movement behind Thor that caught Tony’s eye, and he found himself freezing. He got caught on the figure of a sheepish looking Bruce giving an equally sheepish wave.

Tony’s breath lodged itself somewhere beneath his Adam’s apple, and for a moment, he had trouble getting a decent one past it. A million thoughts raced through his head, a million questions he wanted to voice. _Where have you been? Why haven’t you called? Why did you disappear and leave me to pick up the pieces?_

He held his tongue.

The remainder of Tony’s shock seeped out of his system leaving only emptiness in its wake. It was terrifying how intimate he’d become with this nothingness, but there wasn’t a thing to be done about that now. It was over. He’d been angry at first. Furious beyond belief. Until it faded, leaving absence in its scarring footprints.

Tony couldn’t hold on to that anger. He couldn’t. Not when…

Forcing his face into a frown, a mask, Tony folded his arms and leaned back into his chair. “To be clear,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the Asgardian and one missing Dr. Banner, “what I’m seeing right now is not a hallucination or a dream. All real. Because you called me. Called me like I spent a couple years calling you,” he threw out, tone nonchalant. “Looking for you. The both of you, but especially Dr. Banner over there. So, what? The ‘Ignore Call’ was the go-to up until now because…?” he prompted.

The two looked at each other, and something nasty curled deep in Tony’s gut. It really had been a long time since he’d seen them. Any of them.

“I gotta admit,” Tony sighed after the beat of silence went on for a bout too long, “my patience is running very thin as of late. The two of you, here, are _reeeaaallllyyyy_ pushing your limits. You have approximately thirty second to wow me or I hang up and block you for the rest of eternity.” Another look. Tony raised his brows. “Clock’s ‘a tickin’, boys.”

“Uh,” Bruce said, turning back to the screen. “Yes, right. Well, we need you guys to come to Asgard.”

Tony’s brows shot up farther, eyes widening slightly as he reared back for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?”

He watched with dubious scrutiny as Thor nodded, bobbing up and down worse than a bobblehead on a dashboard. “Aye. There have been odd happenings within the castle grounds. We have recently discovered that an ancient being seems to have taken to haunting us. At the moment, we are unsure of their species, whom they are, or why they are here, but this being is becoming increasingly dangerous. I worry it will go beyond castle walls and endanger the rest of my people. After careful thought and consideration, Bruce and I decided it best if this being be met with the full force of the Avengers so we can rid it from my homeland.”

That was… a lot to take in, Tony thought as an empty laugh bubbled from his throat. However, his mind latched on to one part in particular.

“It’s Bruce now, huh?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from rasping. “Well, not so sorry to say you’re a little late,” Tony commented, waving his hand in a noncommittal gesture, eyes sliding to the suit for an unbidden second.

“What do you mean?” Bruce questioned, and Tony’s eyes snapped back to the screen. The two faces in front of him looked confused and he had to hold himself back from bursting into laughter. Or something worse.

Schooling his expression, Tony shifted himself forward. He placed his elbows on the titanium table in front of him, feeling the chill writhe into his bones. Suppressing a shiver, Tony pushed his elbows farther in, relishing in the physical pain. _That_ was a feeling he could handle. A feeling he knew all too well.

Tony folded his hands together and rested his chin on them. Tilting his head, he gave them a mockery of a smile. “Well,” he drawled, “the thing is, _this_ is exactly why we answer our inter-galactic cell phones. See, the band’s broken up, boys.”

“I do not understand,” Thor said. Tony sat back, crossing his legs and watching as confusion crossed Thor’s features, settling them into a deep frown.

“Listen, Fury 2.0, the Avengers? They’re no more. Not a thing. Got it?” he snapped. “So that’ll be a big, fat no-can-do from mere Earthlings the likes of us.”

Bruce pushed forward closer to the screen, and Tony barely held back an eyeroll at the matching, gawking expression. “What do you mean?”

At that, Tony did roll his eyes, anger welling inside him. He could feel it burning against his veins as his heart pumped it through his system. Goddamn, it was wonderful.

“I honestly don’t know how I could possibly be any fucking clearer,” Tony snapped. He continued to lean back in his chair, feeling it dip and roll with a warning groan at the shifting of his weight, and folded his arms. Hardening his gaze, Tony levelled them with a glare. “Everyone’s favorite super soldier decided to pull a _Romeo and Juliet_ on the rest of us by going after his one true love. Honestly, I’m not sure if I was a Montague or Capulet, so if you get ahold of the dream duo, ask ‘em for me, would ya? In fact, if you want answers period, don’t bother calling me. I’m actually sorry to say that I don’t fucking have them. O’ Captain Your Captain should, though. Why don’t you give him a ring? In the meantime, is there anything else I can help you gentlemen with?”

He eyed Bruce and more anger flushed his system. Everything was a mess. One big terrifying mess, and no one seemed to give two shits anymore. Bruce and Thor? Well, they’d chosen to leave, to hide out, just like everyone else. So Tony had no more open arms to give. He was all out.

It was Thor who broke his stupor first, making Tony swivel his head towards the god. “If we cannot get the Avengers,” Thor trailed off with a tone of remorse, not quite reaching Tony’s eyes as if he knew Tony blamed him and agreed with this assessment. Tony pursed his lips, a guilt so familiar but one he knew he goddamn didn’t deserve, not this time, curling in his stomach. But it wasn’t as if he really blamed Thor. He knew whose fault all this was as much as he liked to rattle off names and point fingers.

“If we cannot get the Avengers,” Thor continued, and Tony blinked at them, keeping his face impassive, “then I would be overjoyed to have the venerable Man of Iron by my side once again.” Thor gave Tony a small smile that Tony couldn’t find it in himself to return. Times for smiling were rare these days. Precious. They weren’t something to be given out casually. Not for something like this. “I believe your skills are what will truly tip the scales in our favor. Heimdall can open the portal for you within the hour.”

Tony felt his muscles tense, and he leaned forward, arms still folded and pushing into his diaphragm. “Wait, what? Hold on, how would _I_ tip the scales? I’m Iron Man. I’m _Tony Stark_. We all know I was never the scale-tipper of the litter.”

Thor gave him a look he couldn’t identify, causing Tony to shoot him a scowl. “This being,” Thor answered, “it is well versed in the art of magic. Magic so ancient, it came before all. I believe science is a formidable opponent to this.”

Tony’s scowl deepened, a flush of annoyance rinsing his insides. He didn’t need pity. He didn’t need guilt-induced kindness. Jerking his chin at Bruce, Tony said, “I still don’t see why you need me. Seems you have your very own scientific genius right there with you.”

Thor instantly answered his question. “Because your skills lie within application and creation. Engineering is the mix of all the artforms within Midgard. A marriage of creativity and science. Man of Iron, I would not be asking this of you if I did not believe your presence to be the most viable of options.”

Thor looked at Tony, and Tony could see the bone-weariness that had settled itself into the once jovial features. Thor looked grim. He hated how much he could relate.

“Fine,” he said almost viciously, falling back in his chair. A twitching feeling trickled down his spine, and Tony couldn’t help thinking he’d just been monumentally played. Tricked. He’d had his hand forced. Trapped.

Closing his eyes against the nausea, Tony swallowed. He hated when people did that.

“Thank you,” Thor said, his voice sounding solemn in Tony’s ringing ears. “Heimdall will open the gate in an hour’s time on the roof of Avenger’s tower.”

Tony ticked numbly, lips pulling into a frown as he looked to the ground. Without waiting to see if Thor had finished, Tony said, “It’s Stark Tower,” and swiped the screen away without so much as looking up. Flopping his head into his hands, Tony squeezed in on himself as hard as he could, muscles tensing, waiting for the next blow. Forcing back tears, he took in a few wet breaths, hating himself all the more.

He didn’t have the energy for this. Not right now. He couldn’t.

So Tony forced himself to release his hold, his muscles shattering the thin layer of ice that surrounded them as he jostled them into movement. Sluggishly, he tipped swollen lids towards the clock glaring at him from the bottom right corner of the holoscreen. 9:57.

Tony let out a breath. A little under an hour.

A part of him, a large part if he was so inclined to acknowledge, wanted to start laughing maniacally. Because _of course_ he would finally be called back into action, finally find Bruce, finally get to see Asgard, and it would be like this. After he’d fucked everything up.

And here he always thought he’d love doing these things.

A wavering thought about needing to pack dawdled in the back of his mind. Tony glanced at the suit again, then tore his eyes away. No, the one under his and Pepper’s bed, the one tucked away safely in a suitcase, that’s the one he’d use. It was archaic. Very old in comparison to the last suit, but it was untouched. Not broken or cracked or so far caved in it cracked his sternum and some of his ribs. So it was perfect.

His eyes followed the lines of the suit, and he couldn’t decide if his look was possessive or revolted. There, plain as day, was a slash slanted into the chest plate. It looked like a bear had mauled a simple piece of clothing. But it was only one ragged tear, and Tony’s stomach curled into knots the same way the edges of the suit curled back towards the metal chest plate.

The place where the arc reactor once shown through was shattered. The glass was cracked and missing chunks, and the sight of a dark casing, where he could see the gears and miniaturized workings of the reactor, all the things that made it tick, all the things he wasn’t supposed to be able to see because there should be a light there made his stomach roil. There should be a light there.

Tony’s airways began to constrict, and he felt an ache in his chest.

Tearing his eyes away from the suit, Tony heaved around an empty stomach, a small bit of drool escaping his mouth as he leaned over in his seat to aim for the floor.

He forced himself to take a few steadying breaths, reminding himself that he didn’t have the arc reactor anymore. His heart worked just fine without it. Tony didn’t need it anymore.

Hands reached for his chest, and without thought, his fingers began to circle the skin in rhythmic familiarity. Funny how the only thing that proved he had a heart had been removed by himself and then promptly shattered by the one person he never thought would break it.

Breaking that stupid, glass box with the old arc reactor, shattering it onto the ground and watching as the faded piece of junk rolled like a top over the broken shards of glass had been oddly cathartic. Tony had stared down at it, the engraving moving too fast at first to read the words. Before it could stop, because Tony didn’t think he could take it if he _were_ able to read those words, he fumbled for the closest heavy object he could find and smashed the damn thing.

There was no explaining how much he desperately needed the outside to match the inside. Not even when Pepper walked in and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what he’d done to her gift. He could see in the way her eyes widened with hurt and pain, the way she slowly trailed off to stare at the remains of what had once been a promise between the two of them, that she would never understand. Could never understand. She’d never get that it had nothing to do with her. That this wasn’t about her.

It's what he told himself, anyway, when she buried those looks beneath something else he refused to see because he didn’t deserve it and stepped over the mess to pull him to her chest, rocking him while he tried not to break down.

When Tony got his breathing back under control, he pushed himself up with shaking arms to stand on equally shaky legs.

 _Pepper won’t be pleased this time, either_ , he thought absentmindedly as he made lethargic steps towards the doors of the lab.

“FRIDAY,” Tony murmured, “please shut everything down.”

He barely noticed a change in the ambiance behind him and sighed, walking away. It seemed like everything these days was wrong and useless. His very own safe haven, the thing that used to be so bright and full of optimism and creativity, was now a shadow of what it used to be. Besides Peter’s new suit, there was nothing in that lab worth anything.

It was infuriating.

Tony had tried his damnedest to come up with something, anything, but it was like his own mind had decided to play hide and seek with him as well. The board of investors were breathing down his neck, the tenseness in Pepper’s shoulders kept growing, even the R&D department seemed to be waiting with bated breath.

And all he had to show for it? A mess, clumps of wires strewn about his lab, sparking of their own volition at odd hours throughout the day. They may have done something to brighten up the lab, with their frequent flashes, but the wires and what they were attached to were absolutely useless. Everything he built these days was useless.

Out of everything in his life, Tony had never thought it would be his lab that would become the thing that became practically unfamiliar.

When Tony popped his head into the living room, he had to admit that he’d been half hoping to find it empty. He immediately felt guilty for the thought, giving it a vehement push out of his mind. Nope, he didn’t hope that at all. He didn’t hope that because that would mean Pepper was off running his company instead of being here with him. And he wanted, _needed_ , her with him. Nothing in his life seemed to make sense right now. He could recognize that. Nothing made sense. Nothing but her.

There was something to that stability. The familiarity. It was good.

It was just… it was easier, he admitted. When it came to these things, it was much simpler to call and – if the odds were in his favor – leave a voicemail. That way they could skip the arguing part that, on some – most – days, dominated their relationship.

Like a magnet being drawn north, though, Tony’s eyes found the back of her head. For a moment, he let himself admire the fiery red wisps of hair shimmering in the lowlight of what was once the Avengers’ common room.

He paused before walking further into the room. Tony had to come up with some sort of tactic, a plan of sorts, to broach the subject. A way to tell her he was leaving, yet again, to do the thing she hated most that didn’t involve sneaking to the stairway on the opposite end of the hallway he’d just exited. As much as Tony desperately wanted to do that, and his eyes dipped longingly back to where he’d come, he was trying to be better at this kind of stuff. For her.

Before his mind could sanction anything off, Pepper was looking up, eyes catching his in the dim lighting, and she smiled. Tony almost changed his mind then and there because it was a smile that was so content and open and not one that he got to see a whole lot of anymore. Like some game of “Where’s Waldo?”, Tony always felt like he was working, searching, for that smile. And here it was, being given so freely, and he couldn’t help the swell of something warm expanding in his chest.

“Hey there,” she said softly.

“Hey,” he replied, voice coming out rough, and he found himself fighting against a lump forming in his throat.

Standing up, Pepper brushed the nonexistent dust off of herself, turning to face Tony fully. “You’re just in time. Did FRIDAY tell you to come up? I have some things for you to sign before tomorrow’s meeting.”

He felt his heart sink a little. So that was the reason for the smile.

“Uh, right,” he nodded, clearing his throat, and Tony finally stepped all the way into the room. “Right, well, um, this is awkward, but I’ll have to get to that later. As soon as I can, though. Promise. But I kinda have to go?” he finished lamely before barreling past her to make it to the private elevator that would lead up to his room. If he believed in God, he’d be praying for her to not catch up with him or his ramblings. Of course, there was no God, he didn’t pray, and she did catch up to him.

Getting off the couch before he even made it to the halfway point, Pepper marched towards him, a frown already marring her features. Tony sighed inwardly. Now that look was far more customary, and he felt himself slump inward even more. This is what Violet, Sunny, and Klaus Baudelaire must’ve constantly felt like after their parents died. It really would have been easier if he could have just left this over voicemail, he thought on a resigned sigh.

“What do you mean?” she demanded, features hard as she searched his face in that intimate way. The one that meant she was preparing for him to disappoint her again. “What’s going on?”

Tony’s eyes fluttered closed. He couldn’t watch himself do this again. Couldn’t face what he was doing to her.

Some days, everything seemed alright. Like maybe, just maybe, he could hold on to this and not let it slip away. Other days, most days, he admitted, it felt like grasping at smoke. How did the song go? He couldn’t recall. Tony only remembered enough to know you couldn’t solve a problem like Maria and a bunch of useless euphemism to prove just that point.

On those days, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever really had Pepper. Ever really had a shot at the whole happy life, nuclear family deal. His life was becoming eerily similar to _The Truman_ _Show_ at this point, and Tony did not appreciate it at all.

But he was determined to hold on to this for as long as he could. If possible, he wouldn’t ever let it go.

Despite the rift that had formed between them somewhere between coming back from Afghanistan and finally falling in love for the first time, Tony was determined to fix it. He’d build a damn bridge if he had to. Leave the suit on the other side and burn it as he crossed.

Every time he got started, though, he always did something. Made some kind of error in his calculations. Because the damn bridge always snapped, leaving him with the ruins, trying to start all over again.

He loved Pepper, though, and he knew she loved him. They could make this work. Like any couple, he and Pep had their ups and downs, their make-ups and break-ups, but they always came back to each other. Circled around one another until it was time to swoop down and start their loop all over again.

Tony watched, in his mind’s eye, as that fragile bridge shattered in his tired hands yet again. He swallowed thickly, letting himself surrender to the fatigue and the inevitable, and opened his too dry mouth to answer her.

“Thor called,” he said, and he sounded drained to his own ears. Tony wasn’t stupid; he knew when it was time to give in. Shrugging and letting his shoulders drop like a puppet-master cutting at strings, Tony told her. “He said that he needed me. Him and Bruce, actually. They- they need me. On Asgard.”

Her eyes bored into him; Tony could feel how they roamed over his face. When he didn’t respond right away, he steeled himself and opened them to look at her. Her features were closed off, and she stared at him with this empty look, pursing her lips.

“They need _you_ ,” she emphasized, removing one arm from where both were tightly crossed at her chest to point directly into the center of his chest, so close that if the arc reactor was still there, she’d be touching it. “Or Iron Man?”

Letting out a breath, Tony opened his mouth, raising his shoulders in another shrug, but this one was half-hearted at best. He had no idea how to tell her he wasn’t sure there was a difference between the two anymore. Maybe there never had been.

His eyes darted to stare above her head, but he lost his wind again and fell back, finishing the shrug with a wave of his hand that fell back against his thigh. He glanced at the ground and then looked up at her from beneath his lashes.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, and she raised one perfectly sculpted brow at him.

In this lighting, she was beautiful. Pepper was always beautiful, but right here? Right now? She was especially so, so Tony let his eyes roam over her, tracing her outline, memorizing her features like a yellow 42 pencil scrit-scratching on the surface of a piece of paper, yellowed with age. Fitting in one image right next to another and then another to save as much paper as humanly possible.

Her image was much sharper, now. All Tony’s jagged edges having chipped away at once soft features. He had somehow twisted her enough so that the fond exasperation, heartfelt pride, and joy had been replaced by disappointment, anger, and annoyance. The worst part was, Tony couldn’t figure out how to untwist it. It felt like every time he tried, it was wound tighter. A coil steadily tightening to become a spring before shooting off in the distance.

He was letting her down. Tony knew that. He knew he’d been letting her down for years, now.

Meeting her eyes, filled with something all too familiar, Tony made his decision. Firm and unmoving. This was it. After this fight, Tony was going to be done. He would put the gauntlet down and destroy the damn thing like he should have after that goddam bastard drove a shield into his already battered heart. Like he should have before Pepper first broke up with him and let his eyes wander from her for the briefest of moments, but it had been long enough.

Fuck, he should’ve just kept them gone after the attack in Miami. Instead, he set up new shop in New York and never looked back.

This time would be different. Tony would swear it. After this trip, nothing would be the same.

With the vow set in his mind, Tony became resolute in his actions. The promise of having Pepper back in his life was worth any sacrifice.

“I don’t understand,” she began slowly, tone quiet. “I thought you’d stopped that. After you came back to me, after the Accords. You promised me you’d stop. Iron Man’s not needed anymore. What, with the Avengers gone and new countermeasures intact. He isn’t a part of the picture. _Our_ picture.”

Nodding absentmindedly, Tony ducked around her and headed towards the elevators. Turning around as he pressed the button and waited; he let himself grab one more look in case she decided this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Biting his lip, he looked back down, tucking his hands deep into his pockets and swaying between the balls and heels of his feet. “I’m sorry, Pep. I swear to you, this is the last time, but they said they needed me.”

She scoffed, folding her arms and looking anywhere but Tony. He could see her jaw ticking in anger and inwardly flinched. “I’ve heard that one before,” she said through those clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, and he knew he was pleading.

“So you’re leaving again?” she snapped.

“They need me,” and his voice sounded small even to him.

“But you’re needed here, too, Tony,” she said, a frown staining her features. “I can’t be the only one working to clean up your messes. Do you know the mess you dumped on me since you broke apart your team in front of God and everyone? And you haven’t helped me with it. Not once. All you do is hide away in your lab.”

Tony jolted at her words, breath catching. “You think it was my fault?” he asked, sounding and feeling like someone had just knocked the wind from him.

He watched as she took a step forward. “I wouldn’t know,” she told him, and this time it was her tone that sounded pleading. “I wouldn’t know because you won’t come out of your lab, you won’t talk to me, you won’t talk to _anyone._ And now you’re telling me you want to go back? Let them do this to you all over again?” Her eyes danced around frantically, and her face was screwed up in pain. “I’m worried about you, Tony. I love you, and you’re scaring me. You can’t keep running from your past,” she told him, her tone gentle. “You need to face it.”

“Pep…” Tony trailed off, eyes searching hers.

Giving him a shadow of a smile, Pepper turned back to the couch right when he heard the ding of the doors opening.

Sighing, Tony slumped back against the wall of the elevator. He let his chin hit his chest, shivering at the chill of metal seeped into his back. Pepper was right, of course. She always was. He really had thought that that battle had been his last; Tony didn’t think he’d put the suit on again besides a quick joy-ride that didn’t bring as much joy as it once had and maybe one or two quick getaways from things like galas and board meetings.

Iron Man simply wasn’t needed anymore. Just as she said. There was no more hero-ing to be done, no more mysteries to be solved. That was all buried beneath that thick pile of dust collecting on the edges of the case down in his workshop. On the smooth, curved surface of the shield sitting in a compound he should have closed down and sold off years ago.

It didn’t take long for Tony to pack up his things from around his and Pepper’s Spartan bedroom. He tossed through their sheets in case there was something in the perfectly made bed he might need. Threw perfectly folded clothes over his shoulders onto their vacuumed and steamed carpet until rumpled piles littered on the once empty floor. Knocked over the holder for his toothbrush as he grabbed the thing to shove into a steadily bulging backpack.

By the time he was done, Tony stood next to their bed staring across the large expanse of room. He had no reason to make a mess of it, especially knowing how much Pepper worked – or hired people to work – to keep it so organized. So tidy. _So empty_ , he thought. God, who knew that having everything could make a person feel like they had absolutely nothing all at the same time?

Tony shook his head. It was a crazy thought but one that settled into his mind the way a stone dropped to the murky bottom of a lake of water.

Somehow, and he had no time to analyze why right now – and Tony doubted he’d ever find the time – but somehow the mess gave the room more vitality.

There were a lot of people who associated explosions with the ending of life. Trust him, he used to be one of them. When that bomb landed next to him, the bright, sharp white letters of STARK spelled over its dark surface, he saw the boom and his death before anything could actually happen outside of the slow haze his mind had filtered into. Even after it didn’t kill him, it sure as hell felt like it did.

Shrapnel in the chest. A painful way to die.

He could remember Yinsen saying those words so clearly in his mind. If Tony closed his eyes, he could picture the man saying them, but it was a lot like watching old films on a film reel. The images were brown and blurry, the effects dimmed and almost faked. But the voice was always clear. It always would be.

So Tony understood the equation: explosion equals death. It seemed like a no brainer.

Then Iron Man happened. And a lot of things after that that made him begin to think that maybe, just maybe, the explosion of that bomb had blown life back into him. Given him a hope he never knew he lost until long after the arc reactor was in his chest and he was far from that cave.

Explosions weren’t simply forces of destruction. He’d come to recognize that they were possibilities. They were a beginning. If Georges Lemaître’s theory was correct (and the universe’s background radiation and redshift sure seemed to think so), then without the Big Bang, there would be nothing.

Tony _liked_ the way Pepper’s _Cosmopolitans_ looked sprawled across his tablet rather than stacked neatly on her nightstand on the opposite side of their vast California King. Her toothbrush should be placed in his aging holder right next to his instead of in a sparkling silver one placed on the second sink. Their clothes mixed so nicely together all over the floor and strewn along overflowing drawers and hangers, in Tony’s opinion. Much better than when they were separately folded into infuriatingly perfect squares and placed ever so carefully into roomy dressers.

It made Tony think of a helpless child succumbing to a bad episode of OCD, absolutely refusing to let one food touch another on their plate as if that would somehow make the meal dirty. Unappetizing.

A grin tugged lightly at his lips. Not enough to do much more than bring him a ghost of a smile, but enough for his heart to beat just a bit faster. Explosions weren’t so bad.

Getting onto his hands and knees, Tony searched beneath their bed, palming at the scratchy carpet in search of the briefcase he always kept there. The one Pepper didn’t know about. The armor in the case wasn’t as fleshed out with finesse and a mountain of much needed upgrades like the suit in his workshop was, but it would do for what he hoped Thor had in mind. Really, he was only there for the research and science portion of this little pet project. Tony doubted Thor would let him anywhere close to the bad guy after their little conversation, but he might need to poke around. People in politics always had a tendency to hide things right beneath the noses of their subordinates.

Pulling it out, Tony softly thumbed the shiny cover of the metal case. With a smooth caress, he reached to the sides and pressed the latches. There was a hiss as the case cracked opened a small hairline of a fissure after so much time being ignored, but he didn’t push the lid the rest of the way up. Not yet.

It did feel good having it in his hands again, though. To have his eyes on it.

Tony didn’t immediately notice as his hand came up to circle his chest in an absent minded manner. It circled the place where the arc reactor no longer lay. When he finally did catch himself, Tony dropped his hand with a sigh, leaning his head back to take a deep breath and clenching his hand into a fist. After years of the thing invading his chest, he supposed that old habits were going to be difficult to break. He just figured that he’d be over it by now, all these years later.

He checked his watch and then closed the case with a firm _click_. Picking up the duffel bag in one hand and the briefcase in the other, Tony made his way to the roof of the tower.

With every step, his stomach clenched farther and farther, tying itself into one hell of a knot. He could feel the tightening in his gut as if he were getting a stomach cramp.

 _This is a game of_ Survivor, he thought. Like he had been voted off the island by his teammates and was now going back to face them as a part of the jury. Except by some twisted turn of events, they were the jury and he was the one being judged.

After years of radio silence had past, Tony could admit that he wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing his old teammates. Thousands of scenarios, conversations, and reactions went through his mind. He figured this is what O.J. had felt like going into trial, except Tony wasn’t going to be let off on the charges he committed. He’d actually have to face the consequences of his actions.

Just a few more names to add to his ledger. His hands were getting bloodier by the minute, and no amount of soap and bleach could ever possibly remove it all.

But he was also angry with them. Furious. They should have been there; they could have helped. Probably would have been useful to have a king of an entire alien nation helping him out with the political side of the Accords. And having another pair of genius eyes might have helped smooth the road for all of them. Not to mention that the entire team could’ve used a healthy dose of Bruce’s calm.

They hadn’t been there, though. They didn’t help. So yeah, Tony, as unfair as the logical side of his brain told him it was, partially blamed them as well.

Stepping out onto the concrete of the rooftop, he shivered as a spike of cold wind poked into his exposed skin like a thousand needles pricking at him. A particularly large gust slammed the door shut behind him with a finalizing bang making him jump. Tony’s eyes glazed over the shimmering surface.

 _Must’ve been raining,_ he thought.

It’d been years since he’d been up here, and this was a lot like walking right into the past. He was so sure that if he squinted in the exact right way and tilted his head a little, he’d be able to make out the slumped shoulders and blond head of a man looking for some form of peace. A peace he never found, but Tony liked to think – used to like to think, he reminded himself – that up here, with Tony, he could find a little.

Tony always had. This was the first time he’d felt cold up here, but this was also the first time he’d come up alone.

He moved farther onto the roof, looking at the way the moonlit clouds reflected so brightly on the ground. Glancing back at the rusted door, Tony took a deep breath. It felt almost momentous to go through with this plan. There was an anticipation in the air, and for what, he didn’t know.

Tony shivered.

Setting his bags down, he clutched at himself trying to preserve his body heat as best as he could. As the winds grew heavier, he looked down at his meager coverings. He wondered if maybe he should have packed a bit heavier. A black Iron Maiden shirt that had thinned to the point of paper and was now growing holes clung loosely at his own slimmed frame. Faded jeans decorated in intricate patterns of oil and grease hung loosely around his hips, dipping lower than they had a few months ago. Worn out, once white sneakers that were literally coming apart at the seams, quickly and easily letting the water soak into his socks and toes.

 _What the press would say if they caught a glimpse at the great Tony Stark now_ , he thought and could taste the bitterness on his tongue that accompanied it.

The clashing sound of thunder all around him made Tony practically jump out of his skin. He whipped around, heart racing. It was a sound that brought so much nostalgic familiarity, and his eyes darted around wildly, searching for something his mind had tried to block out.

“Talk about the express route,” he gasped out, placing his hand on his chest, gripping for the arc reactor and stopping when his grasp fell flat.

He tensed as his gaze travelled downward, catching on what looked like a sword that was the same height as him poking through what must have been the portal. Tony narrowed his eyes, gripping the briefcase even tighter. Couldn’t back out now, that much he knew. When it came down to it, god vs. mortal, not even he was deluded enough to think he could win despite what Pepper, the press, and certain former teammates would say.

The realization brought a brief pause and a shutter to wrack his body. Was there anyone on Earth who truly knew him or was everyone susceptible to the charade he’d so firmly practiced and perfected?

It was a little disconcerting to feel the amount of discomfort he did at the thought. Because Tony didn’t want anyone to know him. Not really. He couldn’t fight his own demons that stalked his mind; no use asking someone else to.

As Tony walked forward, he swore the man was getting bigger. Seriously, he’d have to ask how Asgardian physics and biology worked. He might literally kill someone for those muscles and that height.

It was eerie to him the way Heimdall stared unblinkingly as he approached. There wasn’t so much as a word spoken to him as he approached, and the god only moved to step aside when Tony got within a one-foot range. In a quick, steady motion, Heimdall’s arm swept out to point in the direction of the gate. If the actual god wasn’t a sight to see, then the portal truly was.

Tony wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Its curved edges looked like the static on an old television; like the atoms in the air were spreading and writhing against the image of space. An endless space. Empty and breathtaking and absolutely inescapable.

The breath caught in his throat for a moment, feeling his eyes glaze over as he lost himself to the urgent pull of the past. Staring out across the expansive universe around him. Trillions upon trillions of stares poking through the darkness of his vision, but even that vast amount of light couldn’t overcome the nothingness that reached the insurmountable miles between each dying star.

The jarring, forceful slap of an explosion the size of New York City in his face was nothing compared to the expanse of _space_ right in front of his eyes.

As dying moments went, quickly losing oxygen out beyond the reaches of the human race where people surmounted to theories of a God and His afterlife, Tony doubted any would be more derogating.

He didn’t want to go anywhere near that portal.

When Tony looked back, the gatekeeper was staring at him in a way that gave him the sense that this man knew exactly what he was thinking. Exactly what he was feeling. Tony had never felt more exposed, more transparent in his life. So he forced his thoughts away, tucking his unsavory emotions in that box where he kept all of them these days in lieu of a gratifying apathy and took a firm step forward.

Tony watched as the tip of his toe vanished where the Earth’s troposphere had been opened up before him. He didn’t so much have the time to give the very intriguing scientific anomaly that was currently occurring in front of him a proper thought before pain like he’d never known before was going through him. And that was all he could register because the rest of his senses were gone. There was nothing except the overwhelming sensation of being pulled and torn apart.

Then everything slammed back together, and Tony was gagging for the second time that day. He did his best to get a heave of air into his lungs as his abdomen contracted and convulsed. His vision came back, tears clogging his eyes and distorting the reflective, gold image of the floor beneath him. Tony’s arms shook with a mixture of weakness and chill as the cold surface seeped into his skin.

As his breathing slowed and his gag reflex relaxed, Tony glared over his shoulder at the god. Or, he did his best to, anyway. He got the distinct impression that he didn’t succeed, though, as tears, drool, and other liquids dripped from his eyes, nose, and the corners of his mouth.

Sitting back, he slumped against the floor and wiped his face with the front of his shirt. For a while, he let himself float. His head felt like it was cloudy and stuffed with cotton. Like, a lot of cotton. The feeling was eerily similar to overdosing on drugs.

Another shiver wracked his drooping body at the thought.

Frantic footsteps resounding in his ringing ear canals made him look up from where his head was hanging over his chest. He registered a tight grip coming around his bicep and pulling him up. There were frantic hands at his chest, brushing over his chest, pressing momentarily at the center of his chest until darting away, and Tony felt himself pulled into something firm, but soft and hauntingly warm.

He thought he could make out the soft and smooth sound of a voice that made him think of melting marshmallows and oozing caramels and sitting close to the crackling of a burning fire. It made him think of happiness in a distant longing sort of way, and Tony couldn’t think of why.

The touch, the voice, all surrounding him in a warm cocoon made him feel safer than he had in a long time.

Blinking his eyes open as he fought against his lethargy, Tony’s vision swam as his lungs convulsed. The persistent pull of unconsciousness began to grow and Tony only had time to think how deeply sad those blue eyes looked before passing out.

**Author's Note:**

> A resounding thanks to everyone for reading/kudoing/commenting and a personal thank you to the wonderful musicalla for betaing this chapter.  
> Check out my Tumblr: alexrogersstark for any questions, comments, and/or concerns! :)


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